Attending family dinners such as Thanksgiving is important because the tradition emphasizes the pilgrims’ spirits toward one another. It allows the new generations to express and experience the feeling of thankfulness and appreciation when spending quality time with parents or relatives, which supports mental health in many ways.

During a Thanksgiving feast, families gather around offering and receiving food to replicate the first Thanksgiving feast celebrated by the pilgrims through deer, corn, shellfish, and roasted meat. The first Thanksgiving meeting celebrated the colonists’ first successful harvest, which opened multiple doors for variations of food, traditions, and beliefs later in life. For example, during the first feast, the pilgrims ate whatever was accessible to them, which was quite limited, regarding the new and current recipes today, however, currently, a feast would be doubled in size, leaving the food to be exquisite and innovative. Along the way of improvement, traditions and beliefs were analyzed and experimented. For example, the pilgrims had barely any beliefs and bland traditions, however, as the feast grew over time, people began to demonstrate their beliefs, which then began various traditions like breaking a wishbone for luck or eating a traditional Thanksgiving meal: turkey, corn, stuffing, pie, gravy, mash potatoes, etc. Additionally, because of family, people experience tranquility and serenity, allowing people to feel safe and content which positively progressively alters he/she’s mental health, developing a superior future.

Briefly stated, people should appreciate Thanksgiving because without the pilgrims, meals, traditions, beliefs, and positive mental health wouldn’t have upgraded and expanded worldwide.